TCS Daily : November 2001 Archives

When the dust settles in Afghanistan, Washington's war pundits are sure to lionize the Predator, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that has done double duty in the war, locking onto Al Qaeda officials so they could be bombed, tracking Taliban...
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Squaring a Circle: A Funny Mark Russell -- This week, a person was cloned. Or maybe he wasn't. Depends on whom you ask. Either way, for the most hilarious take on the clone controversy, check out Uthant.com. Threats to...
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Recently, I had a most unexpected, but illuminating, experience. With a local farmer, I was called on to defend genetically modified crops in a major public debate held at a very beautiful cathedral in southern England. The audience of around...
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Lenin once supposedly quipped that we capitalists would sell the rope to hang us with. But even Lenin couldn't imagine the vast amounts of foreign aid we'd give our enemies to pay for that rope. And yet, that's basically what...
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Suggesting to ideological environmentalists that the natural world is not about to collapse under the assault of a greedy and heedless humanity is akin to telling a convention of Southern Baptist preachers that gambling, drinking and dancing are not sins....
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Editor's Note: This article was first published in the Wall Street Journal. Unlike Emma Bovary and Scarlett O`Hara, Erin Brockovich is a real, live person. She`s a 41-year-old mother of three with a gift for publicity. Julia Roberts won an...
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In a desperate effort to pass the Tauzin-Dingell bill, the four Bell companies - which stand to extend their telecom monopolies if the measure becomes law - have tried to convince Congress and the Bush Administration that the competitive local...
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In 1904, the United States took on the task of building the Panama Canal, after the French company that started the project gave up, having lost thousands of workers to malaria and yellow fever. Mosquitoes would suck infected blood from...
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A new North American Indian-controlled oil and gas drilling company was recently formed to provide oilfield services in northwestern Canada, adjacent to Alaska. The company will create investment and business opportunities, employment and training for tribal membe
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FALLS VILLAGE, Conn.- The new, improved American Spectator magazine is being published just up the road, in Great Barrington, Mass., and the latest issue under editor Spencer Reiss, is excellent - and not just because it carries the interview...
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First, the good news. Petroleum, coal and natural gas supply around 84% of energy consumption in the U.S. and 80% worldwide. For now and the near future, fossil fuels are key to improving human health and welfare - and...
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Finding a silver lining from the recent anthrax scares isn't easy. But thanks to the Postal Service, people may finally discover one: a clearer understanding about a life-saving food processing technology called irradiation. The Postal Service hopes to protect its.
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Are we in danger of being overcome by "risk paranoia"? Do we suffer from "risk dyslexia"? Are we weighed down by "risk overload"? I am deadly serious when I pose these questions. I am not just being provocative. They are...
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This will be an extraordinary Thanksgiving, as this has been an extraordinary fall. So tomorrow let's express our deepest appreciation for those extraordinary uniformed men and women who enrich our nation. How can we express enough thanks for those fire...
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Warren Buffett, who was probably the greatest investor of the 20th century, is fond of quoting the salacious actress Mae West as saying, "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful." In the market, such a motto would lead...
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FALLS VILLAGE, Conn. - Here's a weird one. SBC Communications, one of the four mega-Bell monopolies that control 92 percent of local telecom connections, has named William Daley as its president. Daley will be second in command to Ed Whitacre,...
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The Islamic world after the terrorist attack of September 11th is teetering on the edge of massive change with a global realignment as extensive as the collapse of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact in 1989 possibly underway. In retrospect...
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Editor`s note: The Leonid meteor shower thrills scientists and stargazers when it occurs every 33 years. TechCentralStation.com`s Dr. Sallie Baliunas watched and studied this year`s shower and filed these informal remarks. Her comments offer us a chance to understa
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MINNEAPOLIS, Nov. 15 -- It`s late at night and strangely warm in my second `-apolis` of the day. Earlier, I gave a speech in Indian; now, I`m in Minne. Indianapolis is a surprisingly beautiful city: spacious, calm, spotted with...
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Microsoft Goes to School -- The settlement of the Microsoft anti-trust case got interesting this week - and developments revealed the laughably absurd nature of much of the suit against the company. Reports in the Wall Street Journal and the...
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Human burning of fossil fuels isn't the primary culprit of global warming. So said a group of four eminent scientists speaking to representatives from congressional offices, the Bush administration, think tanks and interested industries Thursday. Moreover, the leve
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Editor's Note: This is a new TCS feature. As we head into the weekend, TCS will now bring you a regular column called "Friday Fodder," a recap of the news, events, and ideas that are affecting the intersection of technology...
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Editor's Note: TCS host James K. Glassman sat down with former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick to discuss the ongoing war in Central Asia. Kirkpatrick spoke candidly in a wide ranging interview that touched on...
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Editor's Note: This article is the first of two parts. What is America? Is it an idealistic font of liberation? Is it a commercial republic of profit-maximization? Is it a country aimed at elevation of itself and others? Or is...
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When the final "i"s were dotted and the last "t"s were crossed this week at the United Nation's Seventh Conference of the Parties (COP-7) on climate change in Marrakech, Morocco, Oliver DeLeuze heaved a great sigh of relief. "The Kyoto...
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President Bush will do more in Crawford today than show Russian President Vladimir Putin around the ranch house. He'll push hard on missile defense to protect us against hard-core terrorists. After all, should stone-age barbarians get their grimy hands on...
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As Kandahar teeters, it`s hard not to marvel at the successful teamwork of opposition Afghan fighters and U.S. air power in recent days. Yet upon closer examination, one notes that Air Force aircraft haven`t been as involved as they could...
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NEW YORK, Nov. 13 -- The way I learned about the crash yesterday: my stockbroker told me. He IM'd me: "Jim, what do you think?" "Market still looking good," I IM'd back. "What's to buy?" "No, about the plane."...
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"The Kyoto Protocol is saved." So announced Olivier DeLeuze, head of a delegation from the European Union at the meeting of representatives from about 170 nations who gathered in exotic Marrakech, Morocco to decide what to do about the earth's...
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In the stock market (as in much of life), the beginning of wisdom is admitting your ignorance. One of the many things you cannot know about stocks is exactly when they will go up or go down. Over the...
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Last week, detailed statistics were released on voting in Florida during the presidential election. The data for the first time include all of the state`s precincts, with not just information on race but on party affiliation. At first glance,...
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Sorting fact from fiction in the debate over oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska has become easier recently. Just look at who has actors to do their talking and you'll know who's telling tall...
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NEW YORK, Nov. 11 -- It`s exactly two months since the terror attacks on the World Trade Center here and on the Pentagon in Washington, and, it now appears, anti-Taliban forces have captured Mazar-e-Sharif. It`s been a week of good...
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On Wednesday the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a massive punitive damage award in Baker v. Exxon, a case in which a district court jury had punished Exxon for its role in the 1989 oil spill in Prince...
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This weekend, hundreds of diplomats, executives and journalists will descend on Doha, Qatar-and ask for their gas masks at the airport. And they will get them, along with a sheaf of warnings about terrorists and truck bombs. They will be...
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During her brief tenure as EPA Administrator, Christie Todd Whitman has endured swarms of criticism, not least from Republicans. The stormy battle over Ohio EPA Administrator Donald Schregardus, nominated to be the federal EPA Administrator for Enforcement and Comp
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In the first part of this two-part series, published on October 24, I asked, "Is there a doctrine in the house?" The question was pertinent as news reports of American air-ground assaults filtered back from Afghanistan -- the first...
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Congressman Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland recently sat down with Tech Central Station co-host Sallie Baliunas to discuss climate change and the ongoing climate change talks in Marrakech . Rep. Bartlett serves as Chairman of the Energy Subcommittee of the Science...
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What are we fighting for? Nearly two months after the brutal attacks on America, there's still some public confusion. This confusion stems from a fundamental disagreement over two starkly different approaches to combating the threat America faces. One is...
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DALLAS, Nov. 7 -- The half-moon hung over the gorgeous Dallas skyline like, what? A half-piece of silver pie (words, obviously, fail me). And today it`s a beautiful morning. We awoke to the news that Mike Bloomberg is the next...
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The e-mails continue to pour in, and, frankly, I have been surprised at the strongly negative response to my piece about national identity cards that appeared on this website and in the San Francisco Chronicle. Here's a typical response...
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Jim Glassman: In an article on October 30th in the Wall Street Journal, you made the case that what's needed as an answer to terrorism is revolution. What do you mean by that? Michael Ledeen: What I mean is that...
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On Halloween, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman went forward with a move that should scare the daylights out of poor folks in New Mexico and throughout the Southwest. The EPA announced the new standard for the acceptable level...
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On June 27, 1999, when The Post published my last column on investing, the Dow Jones industrial average stood at 10,533. On Friday, it closed at 9324. I figured it was time to get back here to help out. I`m...
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Editor's Note: Recently Tech Central Station E-Ring contributor Richard Perle sat down with TCS Editor Nick Schulz to discuss the ongoing war in Central Asia and terrorist threats to the United States. TCS Host James K. Glassman has earlier interviewed...
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FALLS VILLAGE, Conn. Nov. 2 - I am not, thank goodness, a commuter, but yesterday I drove up here from Washington, taking a well-worn commuter route, Interstate 270 through DC's northwestern suburbs. There were three of us in the car,...
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You may know Jim Jubak from his frequent appearances on CNBC. Jubak, the senior markets editor at MSN Money, holds a core investing principle: the conventional wisdom is always wrong. Suffice it to say that this guy has an independent...
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Even though Lockheed Martin just beat Boeing in the four-year marathon competition for the design and production contract of the military's advanced Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), some members in Congress are making it run another gauntlet. Republican Sen. Christopher
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Scary autumn tales about the Antarctic ozone "hole" have become an annual media ritual that treats the phenomenon of ozone thinning as an ominous threat to human health and the environment. Thus far, 2001 is proving to be no...
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The stock market often speaks more eloquently and accurately than any analyst, politician or corporate leader. On Thursday, it was saying clearly that a settlement between Microsoft Corp. and the federal government was good for consumers, business and the economy..
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Here's an act of Sept.11 charity that the average American is unlikely to be pleased to have participated in: By doling out a $15 billion aid package to U.S. airlines, the American taxpayer is in fact also bailing out......
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The effort in 1997 to dragoon the United States into handcuffing its economy with a list of environmental dictums that only the wooziest of Utopian Greens -- including our then Vice-President Albert Gore -- found reasonable, haunts us this...
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Here's an act of Sept.11 charity that the average American is unlikely to be pleased to have participated in: By doling out a $15 billion aid package to U.S. airlines, the American taxpayer is in fact also bailing out......
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Editor's Note: Dr. Sallie Baliunas, the distinguished Harvard astrophysicist and co-host of Tech Central Station, and Dr. Willie Soon are the co-authors of Global Warming: A Guide to the Science, a new book released by the Fraser Institute. The book...
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